The Mexican Connection – A Brief Summary

I started a new tradition. Maybe. For the second consecutive year I didn’t spend christmas in Sweden. Last year (2010, not to confuse the readers) I was still in Yemen, and now I’ve just come back from three weeks spent mostly in the United States of Mexico. With some incursions into the south of the United States of America. The primary reason for this is my fiancée whose hometown happens to be the northern Mexican bordertown Matamoros, in the Atlantic state of Tamaulipas and a bridge apart from Brownsville, Texas. And by the way, we met in Yemen.

In the coming weeks I hope to share more of the experience, but for now I’ll have to settle for a brief summary and a preview of coming attractions. Such as ”Don’t take a knife to a gunfight”, the kind of commercial message you’re not likely to see in Sweden, but as I recall was promoting discounts on firearms. Or the fact that the south of Texas, or as my fiancée calls it, ”an extension of Mexico”, is a decidedly bilingual area where many of the residents seem to be of Mexican descent. Matamoros in itself is generally not considered the most charming or beautiful place in the country – not even by people living there. We hade the opportunity to visit a more tourist-friendly and historically important city during my time there; Querétaro where the residents really do take pride in their heritage and the role the place has had in Mexican history. More on that later, I hope.

I also spent a few days in a small town in the southern part of the state of Tamaulipas, a place surrounded by sugar canes and some nice natural scenery. Not exactly a tourist trap, but with some hidden gems for those who know where to find them, including a small river with something resembling a blue lagoon, an ecological museum and and other natural environment-related attractions. To Be Continued. I have to follow the tense handball game between Sweden and Macedonia to its conclusion…